tains rapidly approach the sea, and proportionately contract the breadth of the valley; and the chain terminates at the sea, and seems, in the distant view, to shut up the valley at Ras-el-Attaka, or Cape Attaka, twelve miles below Suez. But on approaching this point, ample room is found to pass beyond; and in passing beyond we find ourselves in a broad alluvial plain, forming the mouth of the valley of Bedea. This plain is on the other or southern side nearly shut up by the termination of another chain of these mountains, which extend between the Nile and the western shore of the Red Sea. Any further progress in this direction would be impossible to a large army, especially when encumbered with flocks and herds and with women, children, and baggage; and this from the manner, in which the rocks, the promontories, and the cliffs advance on the western shore. And, besides, any advance in this direction would be suicidal to a body desiring to escape from Egypt, as they would have the Red Sea between them and Arabia Proper, and would only get involved among the plains and valleys which separate the mountain-chains of Egyptian Arabia." This is the decided opinion, at which the author has arrived after the fluctuating conjectures in the Pictorial Bible (pp. 168-170), from which we may, however, gather several arguments for the support of his opinion; and this will be at the same time the easiest way to refute it. Before all, we must at the very beginning emphatically protest against a supposition, which would at once stamp Moses as the most incapable and most infatuated of all military leaders. It has, as we have seen in our note on xiii. 17, always been his unshaken intention to lead the people into the Arabian desert towards Horeb; he was therefore obliged to take from Goshen the direction to south-east. Now we can well imagine, that in the unavoidable

haste of the journey, he proceeded too far to the south, so that the sea was between his hosts and Arabia; which compelled him to return northwards, in order to march round the head of the Gulf-which he no doubt would have done, if he had not, by the pursuing Egyptians, been compelled to a sudden passage through the sea (as the command in xiv. 15: "and he shall proceed northwards," sufficiently shows). But it is perfectly impossible to suppose, that Moses, having once taken the right route, should intentionally and wantonly, instead of passing round the head of the Gulf into the Sinaitic peninsula, proceed southwards, through a multitude of impassable mountains, and designedly occupy a position which must almost inevitably deliver the army into the hands of their Egyptian enemies. We respect the pious sense, in which that hypothesis originates; for that very infatuation, so obvious and so manifest, is represented as pre-destined, in order to afford God new opportunities for mighty wonders; but even according to that theory, the Hebrew army did not give itself blindly up to a miraculous guidance, but calculated the possibilities and advantages of the different routes; for it did not proceed beyond the valley of Bedea, because " any advance in this direction would be suicidal to a body desiring to escape from Egypt." In all human calculation, every advance to the south, in the west of the Red Sea, was every way equally suicidal. Further, even if we suppose, that the Israelites proceeded, on the command of Moses, six German miles to the south of Suezfor that is the distance to Bedea-this must have been accomplished in one day; and it is impossible for a large and much encumbered multitude to advance at so rapid a rate. And in general, the scientific interpretation must recur to miraculous expedients, only after all attempts at a rational explanation have failed.

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Further, the width of the Gulf in the south of Attaka, amounts, according to Robinson (i. 93), to three German miles; and it is impossible that so numerous a host should, in one night, advance such a distance; although we do not urge the circumstance, that at that point the sea is so deep, that it cannot well be dried up by a wind (ver. 21). Besides, the valley of Bedea is far too narrow and too small, to offer space for a camp to a multitude of about three millions of souls. Further, the Hebrew expression: "and they shall return," does not even admit an interpretation like that quoted above, according to which the Israelites would not have gone back the same way towards Egypt, on which they had proceeded before, but taken quite a different route to the south, without any plan or design. But in our explanation the command: 'they shall return," retains its literal meaning.-The arguments for a more southern passage: that otherwise the Egyptians would have preferred to pass round the little way at the head of the Gulf in order to intercept the Israelites on the other, eastern coast; that in the north the sea has not water enough to drown the Egyptian army, and that it is not wide enough to hold at the same time the whole line of that army; all these, and similar arguments are of little importance, as the former nature and extent of the northern part of the Gulf of Suez, are so little known to us, and at all events, the changes which it has suffered, lead our conjectures about the situation of Pi-hahiroth, rather northwards than southwards.-The Arabian tradition mentions as the point of passage of the Israelites a great variety of names, which, however, are so little authentic, that Shaw remarks, the Bedouins point out to the travellers generally just that place, where they happen

to be asked, as the locality of any ancient event. And all those names deserve, therefore, no critical examination.-About the passage itself, we refer to vers. 21, 22. On a similar basis like the opinion above analyzed, is founded the following remark of Ebn Ezra on our verse: "In truth no man, however wise, ought to search after the deeds of the Lord, for all His works are profound; and the wisdom of man is like nought before Him. And I make this observation, because it appears, that God commanded the Israelites to return, in order by this stratagem to tempt Pharaoh to pursue them, and thus to bury him and his army in the sea. For the ways of the Lord are inscrutable.”. The wilderness hath shut them in; that is, the mountains of the wilderness preclude their further march; or the pathless desert has so entangled them that they have lost the direction of their journey. Targ. Jonathan translates "the idol Typhon has shut them in from the side of the desert," which strange paraphrase, it is curious to observe, has been adopted by Mendelssohn. Philippson translates: "the desert has shut itself before them," and remarks, that the usual translation: "the desert hath shut them in," has no sense or meaning, since the Israelites did not go at all into the desert; but in this severe stricture he forgets, that it is not the Arabian, but the Egyptian desert, in which they seemed to have been hopelessly entangled.

4. And I shall harden Pharaoh's heart. After an interval of several days, during which the king gradually recovered from his panic and reflected on the enormity of the loss he had inflicted upon himself by dismissing so many thousand industrious labourers, his innate pride and obstinacy returned, his heart was hardened again, and the inclination of his mind was strengthened into a firm deter

serving us? his people with him: chariots, and all the

mination by the report that the Hebrew army had made movements which seemed to indicate a perfect ignorance of the territory through which they had to journey, and a cessation of the special providence and guidance which their God had hitherto manifested in their favour. Thus Pharaoh's refractoriness proceeded entirely from the perversity of his own heart; the very circumstances and events which would have reformed a less depraved mind, proved to him as inducements for new acts of pride and disobedience. We can, therefore, not admit the interpretation of those who translate here, and in ver. 8, "I shall encourage Pharaoh's heart," to follow his evil propensity. By this rendering, the dogmatical explanation would be rather aggravated than facilitated, whilst its lexicographical correctness is questionable. And I will be honoured through Pharaoh and through all his host, that is, as the Jewish interpreters aptly explain: By punishing the wicked, God manifests to the world His justice and power, and impresses upon the nations of the earth that His mercy protects the virtuous, and His indignation chastises the insolent and the haughty, so that such acts of just retribution teach the heathens that He is the Lord (compare Ez. xxxviii. 22, 23; Ps. lxxvi. 2, 4). This is a far higher ground than that taken by Cahen: "According to the Biblical or Oriental notions, revenge taken upon the enemies is a matter of pride and glory."

5. The three days after the departure of the Israelites had elapsed, and Pharaoh, informed by his scouts that far from performing the pretended sacrifice they seemingly strayed about without a certain aim, believed now that it was perfectly certain that the people had not left the country in order to wor

ship God, but, in fact, to escape entirely, and he strongly repented of his fatal concessions, which, although slight in themselves, threatened to deprive him of a very useful class of subjects. For the permission which he granted to the Israelites to depart, was distinctly limited to a three days' leave for the purpose of offering sacrifices, but never extended to allow their total emigration; he had clearly pronounced, "Go, serve the Lord as you have said” (xii. 31); and therefore now, when the stratagem of the Hebrews was obvious, the heart of the king, more vividly susceptible to the faults of others than to its own wrongs, was "turned against the Israelites," whilst it was formerly, at least for a short time, inclined in their favour.

6. And he made ready his chariot, that is, Pharaoh ordered it to be done, not "he did so himself in the heat and passion of his revengefulness," as Rashi, following the rabbinical interpretation, remarks.

7. The use of chariots was common in Egypt from very remote periods; it is even, perhaps, one of the first countries where they were known; for Egypt was, on account of its numerous plains and the general flatness of the land, peculiarly adapted for them. A double sort of chariots was, in early times, in use: 1. The pleasure-and travelling-carriages, and the transport-wagons (Gen. xlv. 19,21, 27), and 2. The battle or war-chariots, xv. 4, etc; 2 Chron. xii. 3; Jer. xlvi. 9). The former kind, it is difficult, at present, clearly to describe; but the greatest probability has the supposition, that they resembled a sort of vehicles which are still used in some parts of the Orient, and which are light covered carts, without springs, called Arabah. The travelling-carriages fell, later, more and more into disuse, as the whole land was so intersected with

It

numerous canals, that it became unsuitable for horses and carriages (Herod. ii. 108); and, according to the most recent travellers, even now neither wagons nor carriages are seen in Egypt (Mayr, ii. 40). But of the battle-chariots the old monuments offer us numerous representations, from which we learn their construction and application with sufficient clearness. It is commonly a small box, mounted on two low wheels of six generally round spokes, of such small dimensions, that it allows to the one warrior, who occupies it, scarcely more than standing room. is generally drawn by two horses adorned with rich trappings; a third ran often at their side to be in readiness should one become disabled. The warrior in full arms (with a bow and arrows, or a javelin and a kind of reaping-hook) stood erect in his car; the reins were fastened round his waist; and he thus governed the horses by the movements of his body; and even Egyptian officers of distinction and sons of kings managed their own cars, and sought a particular fame in excelling in that art. It is, however, not improbable that these chariots had often room for two warriors and, in the manner of the Homeric warchariots, or those of the Romans (which contained the bellator and the auriga), were driven by a charioteer, whilst the warrior could, with greater safety and firmness, direct his whole attention to the combat. Still in later centuries the Egyptians remained so renowned for their battle-chariots, that the Israelites, from this reason, sought their alliance against the Assyrian and Chaldean invaders (2 Kings xviii. 24; Is. xxxi. 1; Ezek. xvii. 15).—That Egypt abounded in beautiful horses is well known (see on ix. 3); according to Diodorus Siculus the Egyptian kings before Sesostris had along the banks of the Nile, between Thebes and Memphis, two hundred stables, each of which contained a hundred horses, and

foreign kings enriched their studs with horses of Egyptian breed (1 Kings x. 28; 2 Chron. xiii. 3). But riding on horseback was, even many centuries later, not in use among the Egyptians; and neither the circumstance that profane writers ascribe that art to so old and genuinely an Egyptian deity as Osiris or his son Orus, nor that on ancient Egyptian paintings mounted figures are represented, prove such a custom at an earlier period; the accounts of the former are too indistinct and fabulous, and the monuments represent riders on horseback only among the enemies of the Egyptians, or among foreigners; and it is sufficient merely to mention the vague assertion of Wilkinson (Manners i. p. 289), who accounts for the omission of every notice of Egyptian cavalry on the monuments by supposing "that the artists intended to show how much more numerous the horsemen of the inimical nations were than of their own people."

An organised and powerful cavalry of the Egyptian army is, therefore, in the times of Moses, out of the question. But the passage, Gen. xlix. 17, can by no consideration be adduced as a proof of the art of riding among the Egyptians, as has been done by Kitto, since it refers not to Egyptians, but to Hebrews, although then living in Egypt. For agricultural labours the horses were, according to unanimous testimonies, not used in Egypt.-As, therefore, the horses were chiefly applied for the purposes of war, especially for battle-chariots, the decay of their breeding is naturally accountable by the gradual decay of the martial spirit and of the military organization of the Egyptians. The distinction between the "chariots of Egypt" and "the selected chariots," justifies us in supposing, that the former belonged to the guard of the king. The existence of such a privileged body is

certain, not only from testimonies of Herodotus (ii. 168), but from frequent representations on Egyptian monuments (Rosellini, II., iii. p. 201). They were distinguished by their arms and garments, and enjoyed peculiar privileges besides those which were common to the warrior caste. They were especially important and influential in later times, under the dynasty of the Ptolemies; they possessed the royal confidence in a high degree, and were used to the most momentous offices and commissions, especially the "chief of the guards." The number, “six hundred chariots," must appear very moderate, and therefore trustworthy, if we consider that Diodorus of Sicily (i. 54), describes the military power of Sesostris consisting of 600,000 men infantry, 24,000 riders, and 27,000 battle-chariots.

8. And the children of Israel went out with a high hand, that is, openly, confidently and joyfully (see Numbers xxxiii. 3, where it is added, by way of explanation "before the eyes of all Egypt "), or, as Mendelssohn says: "they made themselves banners and military standards, and went out cheerfully and singing and playing on cymbals and lyres, like men who are for ever free from thraldom, not as slaves who intend to return to the old yoke." The joyfulness and confidence of the Israelites refers to the exact time of the exodus; for, but a short time later, when the approaching Egyptians became visible (verse 10), despondency and apprehension prevailed through their hosts.

9. It cannot appear surprising, that Pharaoh was, in such a little interval, enabled to pursue the Israelites with so numerous an army, as it is well known that the warriors formed the second hereditary caste of Egypt, which was so influential that the kings were generally taken from it, and that it was alone, except the priests, allowed to acquire

And if, as we

landed property from the principle that the occupiers of the soil are most interested in the safety of the country. Every soldier received twelve aurora of land, free from all charge and tribute (the aurora was a square measure, containing 10,000 cubits). Besides, no civil authority had the power of arresting and imprisoning a soldier for debt (Diod. i. 79). Herodotus (ii. 164-168) relates that they were divided into two classes; the Hermotybies and the Calasiries, who were originally, no doubt, different tribes. Both were stationed in different nomes or districts, but almost exclusively in Lower Egypt; four-and-a-half nomes were, within the Delta, occupied by the Hermotybies, and eleven others by the Calasiries, whilst each of these classes had but one district in Middle and Upper Egypt, namely, Chemmis and Thebes. have no reason to doubt, this distribution of the warriors was already made in anteMosaic times on account of the frequent invasions from Asia, the promptness with which the Egyptian army could be called out in Lower Egypt, is the easier accounted for. The Hermotybies consisted, in the time of their greatest strength, of 160,000 men; the Calasiries of 250,000. They were not allowed to learn trades, which pursuits they were accustomed to consider as undignified and unmanly, but were obliged to devote themselves exclusively to their military calling. However, as they were landed proprietors, it is very probable that, in times of peace, they engaged besides in sports of the field, and gymnastic exercises, in the occupations of agriculture, which promote the physical strength and foster habits of activity and temperance; although, according to an account of Diodorus, they were accustomed to let out their lands to husbandmen. Annually 1000 Hermotybies and Calasiries had to serve as a guard to the king; and they